Although phones (including mobile phones) have added incredible efficiency to people's lives, unwanted calls can be annoying, intrusive and damaging. Sources of such calls include: a) machine-triggered calls that play pre-recorded messages (“robocallers”); and b) calls from humans that are unknown to the phone user.
Most robocallers are illegal. While many of these calls are benign sales calls, some are attempts to defraud consumers. But “do not call” registries and other legal remedies have had little ability to control or reduce this problem. Even legal robocallers are often unwanted, and consumers have had no tools available to avoid these intrusions.
Adding to the complexity, robocallers are not always unwanted by a user. For example, a school may use a robocaller to call all parents and inform them of an emergency school closing due to weather. Or a government agency may use a robocaller to warn citizens to seek shelter in view of a weather event or other emergency. It is therefore useful to distinguish between wanted and unwanted robocallers so that wanted robocallers reach the phone user without being blocked.
Moreover, when an unknown human is calling, it is useful for a phone user to know all possible information about a caller with an unrecognized number before deciding whether to answer a call, send the call to voice mail or blacklist the caller.
Accordingly, it is useful to provide a system and method for increasing the efficiency of phone call usage by using strategic call forwarding techniques to analyze incoming calls and process these calls in real time to: 1) divert unwanted robocallers and/or 2) provide information about unknown human callers.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.